Key Highlights:
- India has vaccinated about over 8 million people in a single day
- After suffering from the fatal second wave, the country is gearing up its medical facilities for the upcoming third wave
- The current vaccine rate is bothersome, as per exerts, provided the lethal impacts of the second wave of the pandemic
8 million Vaccinations in a Single Day
Currently, India made it to the headlines by administering more than 8 million COVID-19 vaccinations in a single day. India has been under the international limelight since a while due to the aftermath of an unprecedented second wave of the novel coronavirus. The country suffered brutally at the hands of the second wave of pandemic and a tremendous loss of life.
Currently, it is gearing up for a third wave which is proclaimed to affect the younger group—the children. While India is rolling out its vaccination drive at a stupendous rate, is it prepared enough for the upcoming wave?
India’s Vaccination Status
While India’s pace of vaccination drive imparts celebratory reactions, the number of casualties and deaths impacted by the second wave is something to stress upon. As of June 2021, the death toll in the country has crossed over three lakhs and almost half of them—nearly 1.5 lakh deaths—have happened during the second wave, starting from the second week of February.
The figures are startling. It is important to note that India has rolled out the vaccination drives at a faster pace in order to vaccinate as many people as it can to prevent larger infections during the incoming third wave. The important question is whether India can counter the third fold provoked by the deadly virus?
The Third Wave and ‘Delta Plus’ Variant
As the country is yet to witness a third degree, it is also yet to undergo the extremities of the freshly detected mutant variant of the novel coronavirus, the ‘Delta Plus’ variant. After causing tremors throughout the country, the further mutation of the Delta Variant (B.1.617.2) has been declared as a variant of concern (VOC), an elevated risk compared to a variant of interest (VOI). “It is worrisome because we do not know enough about how it is going to behave from here,” Om Shrivastava, a member of the Maharashtra Task Force on COVID-19, said.
Current Projected Vaccine Supply
Vaccination drive in the APAC region can be marked as sluggish. A total of 1.68B people have been vaccinated in the region, with the highest number of doses being administered in China (1.1B). Although India is vaccinating a humungous population by offering free shots to all adults, experts suspect whether the pace can be maintained. “This is clearly not sustainable,” stated Chandrakant Lahariya, an expert in public policy and health systems.
“With such one-day drives, many states have consumed most of their current vaccine stocks, which will affect the vaccination in days to follow.” He further added that with the currently projected vaccine supply for the next few months, the maximum daily achievable rate is 4 to 5 million doses. The effort has so far covered about 5.5 per cent of the 950 million people eligible, even though India is the world’s largest vaccine producer.
Also read: India and 8 Other Countries Began Their Vaccination Drive
